Many corporations provide services over the telephone, such as technical support, customer service, and direct sales. To maximize efficiency, corporations often perform repetitive telephone functions at centralized call centers. A typical call center has an automatic call distribution (ACD) system in place which distributes incoming or outgoing calls to ACD agents who are stationed at communications terminals. An ACD agent performing a call center function such as booking airline reservations may find the work to be repetitive and boring, leaving the agent unmotivated to service the next caller.
Providing incentives for agents to continually perform to a certain standard is not easy. Positive reinforcement and negative reinforcement are two possible categories of incentives that are used to encourage agents to conform their work habits to a particular standard. Common examples of negative reinforcement techniques used in employer/employee relationships include suspensions and demotions, and common examples of positive reinforcement techniques include pay raises, bonuses, and promotions.
Some tools exist to provide incentives specifically to employees who work as call center agents performing repetitive telecommunications business interactions. The existing tools typically carry out collection and reporting functions for a variety of ACD agent performance metrics, such as the number of calls handled per shift, the average call handling time, or the number of sales per hour. Call center managers then take the call system reports to either reward or punish call center agents based on the reported information. Use of most existing tools is a manual process which requires the call center manager to obtain reports, review the reports, compare the reports to reward/punishment criteria, and then contact the appropriate agent to communicate and deliver the appropriate reward/punishment. The full reward/punishment process may take days or weeks to complete using conventional systems, reducing the effectiveness of motivating the agent by linking specific actions with a reward or a punishment.
An example of a more automated tool used to motivate call center agents is disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 5,239,460, entitled "Arrangement for Motivating Telemarketing Agents," issued to LaRoche. LaRoche discloses a method and arrangement for providing performance feedback to telemarketing agents by obtaining quantitative and qualitative measures of an agent's performance. Quantitative measures, such as the number of calls handled and dollar value of sales, are obtained electronically. However, qualitative measures, such as courteousness, professionalism, and accuracy of response, are obtained by a supervisor listening to a call and evaluating the agent's performance. The quantitative and qualitative measures are then multiplied together to generate a current indicator of a particular agent's overall performance. The current indicator of the agent's overall performance is fed, in the form of a scaled number, to the agent for viewing through the agent's telecommunications terminal. The performance indicator displayed on the agent's terminal is the only feedback provided to motivate the agent.
A disadvantage of the LaRoche system is that LaRoche requires a supervisor to listen to a call to grade the qualitative aspects of an agent's performance, thereby delaying the feedback obtained by the agent. Additionally, an agent may not be motivated by a performance indicator number being displayed at the agent's telecommunications terminal, especially when the performance indicator number is being used as a negative motivational incentive.
Another example of a tool used to provide incentives to call center agents is disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 5,483,444, entitled "System for Awarding Credits to Persons Who Book Travel-Related Reservations," issued to Heintzeman et al. (hereinafter Heintzeman). Heintzeman discloses a computerized system that provides incentives for travel agents to book particular travel-related reservations. The system assigns a code to each participating travel agent to uniquely identify the agent. The system then awards credits to the travel agent identified by the code when the agent books a qualifying reservation. The system allows travel agents to build up credits over time based upon their bookings and then use the credits to receive a particular prize or award.
While the Heintzeman system may work well for its intended purpose, it is limited since the only motivational aspect of the system is the accumulation of credits for future prizes or awards. If the agent is not interested in the offered prize or if accumulating the necessary credits takes a significant amount of time, the agent may not be effectively motivated to book particular travel-related reservations.
What is needed is an improved method and system to provide more immediate positive incentives to call center agents to motivate the agents to conform their work habits to a particular standard without significant extra work by managers and supervisors.